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No one has swagger like Jamaicans

Some dub it swagger, the vintage term is cool. No matter the word, Jamaicans have it in abundance.

Damian Marley

Grace Jones in A View to a Kill.

Mavado performs during DJ ProStyle's birthday party at Hammerstein Ballroom on April 30, 2012 in New York City. (Cindy Ord / GETTY IMAGES)

By ashante InfantryStaff Reporter

Wed., June 6, 2012

Some dub it swagger, the vintage term is cool. No matter the word, Jamaicans have it in abundance.

Does it derive from a laissez-faire lifestyle of sun, sea, rum and ganja? Whatever the origins, it reflects the intensity, determination and supreme confidence that characterize the Jamaican personality.

It may have started with the Maroons who, centuries ago, infamously gave a middle finger to the British overseers and won their freedom, controversially, selling out some brethren in the process.

The enslaved Africans then realized it was possible to outsmart the master, and that ‘you-can't-beat-us' rebelliousness has underpinned the culture ever since.

It fuelled creation of a unique religion and musical genre; produced decades of record-setting athletes, and enabled generations of working class men to step up.

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Jamaican poet and novelist Kwame Dawes offers an interpretation: The Jamaican attitude is one of the ways in which Jamaicans have come to assert themselves and combat the pressure to feel insecure, which came about as part of the horrendous violence and brutality that marked the slave system in Jamaica.

The trick is to suspend “a sense of scale,” he says.

“Without a sense of scale, a fisherman from Buff Bay has no problem approaching the Queen of England and expecting her to respond positively to his statement, ‘Hey, queenie, you want to dance?' ”

Here are some classic and contemporary examples of the quintessential Jamaican personality: Cocky, dignified, defiant.

Soundtrack

Claude McKay: A leading figure of the Harlem Renaissance, his seminal 1919 poem “If We Must Die” was a rallying cry for black self-determination encapsulating his countrymen's unyielding can-do attitude.

Recalls author Dalton Higgins: “Growing up in Toronto, while my peers were looking to get tats with dollar signs and other consumerist-related phenomena, I wanted to get Claude McKay's words from ‘If We Must Die' stuck somewhere on my body for props and posterity.”

Men

Mavado: Though he is best known abroad for playing a creepy gangster in Drake's “Find Your Love” video, this dancehall star's 2008 hit “So Special” showcases the “we're-all-stars” aspect of the Jamaican persona.

Harry Belafonte: Born in New York to Jamaican parents, the singer-actor spent swaths of his childhood on the island with his grandmother. With the dazzling smile and inviting hips, he could've just focused on being a sex symbol, but Belafonte never stopped agitating for civil rights, to the detriment of his career, some believe.

“Harry Belafonte's first public paid gig as a singer was as a jazz vocalist performing with the Charlie Parker quartet, which included Miles Davis,” recalls Jamaican music historian Klive Walker. “Successful Jamaicans, no matter who they are, have a real confidence in their abilities to exceed expectations in what they do.”

Ivanhoe Martin: The character singer Jimmy Cliff played in the 1972 breakout Jamaican film The Harder They Come typified the challenge of rising above one's station in an economically-stratified society. A poor country boy unable to parse the corrupt music industry, Ivan winds up a cop-killing gangster. His “rude bwoy” persona inspired the underclass in and out of the film.

Damian Marley: There are feminists of a certain age who will admit to crushing on the late King of Reggae, unrepentant philandering and women-to-the-back outlook aside. Marley's seventh son has avoided public, personal controversies while building a respectable catalogue that reflects the persuasive, heartfelt social concern of his ghetto-raised father despite a pampered, private school upbringing.

Women

Grace Jones: Long before Nicki Minaj, Lady Gaga, Madonna even, this model-turned-singer and Andy Warhol muse was putting on an eccentrically good show. With shoulder pads, a flat-top haircut and cheekbones that blazed like headlights, Jones stood apart, embodying beauty with strength.

Merlene Ottey: Merlene Ottey may be running for Slovenia these days, but she's still Jamaica's greatest female sprinter. That she's still competing at 52 speaks to the never-say-die spirit that has fuelled a career in which she has won 14 World Championships.

Portia Simpson-Miller: Jamaica's seventh and first female prime minister is a controversial figure. Critics have picked at her academic credentials and penchant for plain talk, but there's no denying her warmth, humour and ferocity.

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